Hierarchical Bayesian inference for HIV dynamic differential equation models incorporating multiple treatment factors

Studies on HIV dynamics in AIDS research are very important in understanding the pathogenesis of HIV-1 infection and also in assessing the effectiveness of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. Viral dynamic models can be formulated through a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODE), but there has been only limited development of statistical methodologies for inference. This article, motivated by an AIDS clinical study, discusses a hierarchical Bayesian nonlinear mixed-effects modeling approach to dynamic ODE models without a closed-form solution. In this model, we fully integrate viral load, medication adherence, drug resistance, pharmacokinetics, baseline covariates and time-dependent drug efficacy into the data analysis for characterizing long-term virologic responses. Our method is implemented by a data set from an AIDS clinical study. The results suggest that modeling HIV dynamics and virologic responses with consideration of time-varying clinical factors as well as baseline characteristics may be important for HIV/AIDS studies in providing quantitative guidance to better understand the virologic responses to ARV treatment and to help the evaluation of clinical trial design in response to existing therapies.